Many cooling devices are in wide use throughout industry. Some of these devices are referred to as “fluid coolers” and are used to cool and return fluid from devices such as water source heat pumps, chillers, cooling jackets, or other systems that produce relatively hot water and require the return of relatively cooler water. Such cooling devices include different types such as closed looped systems, which often feature a serpentine heat exchange coil, and open loop or evaporative systems, which pass the water through fill media such as a sheet pack or over a series of splash bars before collecting the water in a basin.
One particularly advantageous arrangement combines these two features, such as for example the arrangement described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,112,027, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. This patent describes a high efficiency, induced draft, combination counter-flow-crossflow fluid cooling apparatus and method which gives unexpectedly enhanced cooling of hot fluid by causing the fluid to pass upwardly through a series of serpentine heat exchange conduits in primarily countercurrent, indirect sensible heat exchange relationship with external cooling water gravitating from an overlying evaporative water cooling section. Cross-flowing air currents are pulled through the apparatus to evaporatively cool the water not only in the upper cooling section but also in the sensible heat exchange area as well. Countercurrent flow of coolant water and fluid to be collected ensures that the coldest water and coldest fluid are in thermal interchange during the final stages of fluid cooling at the upper ends of the heat exchange conduits, so that the fluid temperature can approach that of the cold water as opposed to approaching the temperature of heated water found adjacent the lower ends of the conduits, which is conventional in concurrent fluid units of this type. The fluid conduit system is preferably arranged for causing increased fluid residence time, and thereby greatest temperature difference and longer heat exchange between the fluid and coolant water adjacent the air inlet of the apparatus where air and coolant water temperatures are lowest relative to the fluid to be cooled, so that an ideal countercurrent flow relationship is obtained and maximum heat transfer is assured. An underlying water collection basin is also employed in the apparatus which is constructed to permit collection of cooling water to a level above that of the lowermost portions of the hot fluid conduits, in order to allow the hot fluid traveling through the conduits to heat the collected water to prevent freezing thereof during wintertime operations when the internal water pump is shut down causing the stoppage of the evaporative cooling and hence a raising of the lower water basin level.
The above described system, while providing excellent performance, can still be improved upon. In, particular an alternative spray system design has been developed that does not require pressurized or gravity based nozzle sprays systems. The invention described in detail herein accordingly offers an alternative to the above mentioned systems to uniformly distribute water in a fluid cooler or the like.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to have a cooling tower and/fluid cooler that provides desired cooling performance, without the use of pressurized or gravity based nozzle spray systems.